When depositing diamond-like carbon layers for wear protection it is advantageous to deposit two or more layers of carbon, each with different film thicknesses; the thicker layer on the laser texture zone and the thinner in the data zone. The thicker layer provides wear protection and the thinner one giving the advantage that the head can fly closer to the media and thereby provide better magnetic performance.
When depositing carbon by ion beam deposition, it is often not possible for space reasons or practical for cost reasons to utilize two or more ion sources as the number of process chambers is limited.